Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday vowed a strong military response to a string of Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s border that he described as an attempt by Kyiv to derail his bid for re-election.
Putin addressed his security council on the first day of the three-day vote that is also being held in occupied territories of Ukraine and with no opposition candidates allowed to contest the ballot.
He promised a harsh response to waves of fatal Ukrainian aerial attacks on the frontier regions of Belgorod and Kursk that have also seen fierce fighting in recent days with pro-Kyiv sabotage groups.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“These strikes by the enemy do not and will not go unpunished,” Putin said in comments aired on state-run television.
“This is an attempt to interfere with the presidential election,” the 71-year-old Russian leader added.
Yesterday, the governor of Russia’s Samara region said that Ukrainian drones had struck two oil refineries belonging to state-owned oil giant Rosneft in the region, causing no casualties but leaving one facility on fire.
The Kremlin on Friday distributed images showing Putin voting online at his office computer and waving to the camera after issuing the vow to strike back against Ukraine, and as Russian strikes killed at least 19 in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa.
Authorities have encouraged Russians to head to the polls out of patriotic duty, with the Kremlin saying the election would prove the country is fully behind Putin’s Ukraine assault.
Journalists at polling stations in the capital interviewed Russians supportive of Putin, but also heard from voters who said they were pressured into participating.
“If I did not come to the elections, I would have had problems,” said Nadezhda, a 23-year-old ballerina
“Most young people understand anyway that they can’t do anything, that they can’t change anything,” said Nadezhda, who has spent her life living under Putin’s rule.
The first day of voting was marred by acts of vandalism in polling stations, with at least nine arrests for pouring dye into ballot boxes and arson attacks.
In Moscow, video showed a woman setting a voting booth alight, filling a polling station with smoke, while another showed a woman pouring green dye into a ballot box.
Four other people in the Russian regions of Voronezh, Karachay-Cherkessia and Rostov were detained for similar offenses.
In Saint Petersburg and in Siberia, women were detained for throwing Molotov cocktails at polling stations. A man was also detained for lighting fireworks inside a polling station in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk.
It was unclear whether the spate of polling station incidents was a coordinated protest against the ballot or isolated incidents.
“It seems Russians have chosen their form of protest: ruining voting booths,” Russian political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya said.
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